Post navigation

Market research is the way that companies gather information about their customers, competitors, and the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns for those of you who are wondering what it is. In recent years the internet has had a huge affect on the way that companies have been conducting their market research through the various methods that are available for them to use. Companies know that almost everyone and their dog get on the internet for one reason or another and this is a great way for them to be able to gather information about what their consumers want as well as keep an eye on what their competitors are doing. The internet is also a great way for companies to test and try different marketing campaigns before they spend millions of dollars on them. There are a few different ways that the internet has had an effect on the way that market research is conducted.

One thing that companies are able to do is called keyword research. Conducting research on different keywords is how businesses find out what words and phrases their customers are using when they are searching for the products that they are selling. This is a great advantage because it allows the company to focus on certain words and phrases that will gain them popularity. Also, if the company has a website they will be able to move their website into a better position by building links back to their site that focus on these specific keywords.

Companies can also take surveys and put up polls on different topics that will help them to get the opinion of the consumers that buy their products. This helps the company to know what they are doing right so that they can do more of it and it also helps them to gather information that they can use to make their customers happier.

A company can also easily check out what their competition is doing by looking them up. They will be able to see where their competition is getting backlinks from, and they will be able to see what methods their completion is using to be able to gain more customers. There are a lot of different tools that a company can use to be able to find out what their competition is doing on the internet very quickly and easily. One of the biggest advantages that a company has when they use the internet for market research is testing different advertising campaigns to find out which one works the best. There are a lot of different ways to advertise both online and offline and companies pay a lot of money each year to advertise their business. By doing their market research online they will be able to find out which campaign will bring them the most success before they pay out all of the money to run it.

Over the past few years the internet has dramatically affected the way that market research is being conducted. It will have an even larger affect as we move forward into the future. It will be very necessary for every company to have knowledge of Internet Marketing so that they will be able to quickly and effectively do their research online.

When purchasing and installing a new Manufactured Home, there are two upgrades that are recommended. They are installing a Vapor Barrier and Earthquake Bracing. Each is explained here:

Mobile Home Vapor Barrier

A Vapor Barrier for a Mobile or Manufactured home is a sheet of thick, rubbery plastic that goes directly over the dirt under a Mobile or Manufactured home. The foundation piers then rest on top of this barrier.

You really need to make sure a home you buy or have installed has this protection. Mobile and Manufactured homes need dry ventilation underneath. This barrier will prevent any moisture from damaging the home – especially rotting of the floors, but also helping with fungus, mold, and termites.

Making sure that a vapor barrier is installed before you buy a Mobile or Manufactured home is absolutely necessary. And the additional cost is very minimal considering the amount of protection you gain.

If you are buying a mobile or manufactured home that is already on a space, but with no vapor barrier, then you can hire a contractor to install a vapor barrier under the home. They will just have to cut pieces that will go around the pier-and-post foundation and all piping in place. This is not ideal, but way better than no barrier at all.

Mobile Home Earthquake Bracing

Earthquake bracing is recommended in California, and elsewhere earthquakes are common. Mobile Homes and Manufactured Homes are especially susceptible to damage in a earthquake due to their foundation system (most of the time they are installed on a pier-and-post system).

Earthquake bracing is a simple upgrade that can increase the value of your home by at least the cost of installation of the bracing. This cost is running from $2000 to $4500 in California right now. The actual brace is like a shock absorber in a car, but installed at an angle from the steel I-beam on the bottom of the home, and anchored to the ground. This brace will keep the home from shifting off the pier-and-post foundation.

Insurance companies may insist on having earthquake bracing installed if you want to purchase earthquake insurance on your Mobile Home or Manufactured Home.

Earthquake bracing can also help a Mobile Home not come off the foundation in high winds, although it is not designed to do this and should not be relied on for this.

Pictures and further explanation on both of these upgrades, as well as a whole bunch of free information, tips, advice, and recommendations can be found at: http://www.free-mobile-home-info.com

Electrical control systems apply control systems engineering to the ability to maintain system performance to known parameters. Simply put, systems that have the ability to monitor and control processes utilize the basic fundamentals of electrical control systems. These include: circulation pumps, air compressors, manufacturing systems, utility analysis and metering, refrigeration plants and motor control panels. Electrical control systems are doubly beneficial by saving money through modeling and controlling for predictive behaviors as well as reducing applicable output which include carbon emissions.

But let’s look more closely at three specific types of electrical control systems or processes that could transform and change the way you do business:

1) Industrial Automation Systems: Regardless of the type of manufacturing business you operate: discrete parts, batch or continuous process, management, information flow and control are vital to your business’ success. Automating important functions of your business could show you immediate and long term financial gains. Much of your manufacturing business could be automated increasing your productivity and ability to report immediately on various systems which are inefficient. Imagine your manufacturing business automating its inventory control systems, down time, production monitoring and reporting, database systems, routing optimization and more. Being able to quickly react to changes in your business via statistical analysis and automation is one of the more critical deciding factors in a business’ profitability.

2) PLC Programming (Programmable Logic Controller Programming): Manufacturing automation would not exist without PLC programming. It’s a digital computer used for electro-mechanical processes like machines on a factory line. Earlier automation systems used thousands of individual relays and timers. In most cases, a PLC allows all of the relays and timers within a factory to be replaced with a single controller. PLC Programming can be found in paper machines and pulping processes, conveyor systems, bottling lines, web handling lines, packaging operations, mixing, batching and blending and so much more.

3) Risk Assessment: Most plant engineers, maintenance supervisors, operators and managers will ask themselves at some point: “how safe is my machine”. Although no machine is ever considered to be completely safe, the answer should be a truly unbiased assessment. A risk assessment consists of a comprehensive review of your machine which analyzes operating and maintenance procedures, identifiable risks (analyzed and categorized by established and accepted national/international standards), mitigations for these risks, and all the information you will need to make your system meet the applicable standards.

Electrical Control Systems are changing the way companies are doing business with critical automation from PLC programming, industrial automation systems and risk assessment. Effective manufacturing process control and information systems continue to make businesses not only more efficient, but profitable as well.

When we think about lean manufacturing we think about work cells, kanban cards, TQM and so on. But many people do a basic mistake. That is the mistake of not understanding the concepts on which lean manufacturing built on. Many people who copied lean manufacturing failed because they did not understood the concepts behind lean manufacturing.

We shall give a simple definition to lean manufacturing before we go further. Lean manufacturing can be defined as a systematic approach to continuously identify and remove the wastes from the system. All the tools and techniques are based on fulfillment of this simple requirement.

To identify the conceptual difference between lean manufacturing and conventional manufacturing, we will have a look at the definition given above. There is a very important word to note. That is “Removing”. Removing of waste from the system might not sound very different to minimization of wastes in the system, what we talk in conventional manufacturing. But think carefully. These two words are very different in the context of manufacturing (or even services).

When you think about minimizing of waste, you are thinking about the current system where you have wastes. You think about minimizing those wastes by fine tuning the system. When you think about eliminating or removing wastes from the system, you will have to find the causes for the wastes and remove them from the system. This means that you will have to redefine the process in a way that there are no wastes generated. So in the first case you live in the system where there are wastes, and struggle to get some improvement. In the later, you change the system so that system itself will not have the wastes. Aren’t they really different?

I will give you one more example to clarify the conceptual difference between lean manufacturing and traditional manufacturing. Think about Work In Progress (WIP). In a traditional manufacturing process WIP is treated as an asset which helps to run the process smoothly. Lean manufacturing though, treats WIP as a waste itself. Further, lean manufacturing treats WIP as a mirror which reflects the imperfection of the system.

I can go on and on explaining conceptual differences these systems have. But it is very important to understand one thing about lean manufacturing. Lean manufacturing is not a fine tuning to the traditional manufacturing system you had. It is a completely different system. To be able to implement lean manufacturing correctly, understand the conceptual differences between lean manufacturing and traditional manufacturing.

Marketing strategy consists of some valuable plans that integrate an organization’s marketing goals. The Proper combination of goals, policies, and action sequences makes the marketing strategies effective. The main aim of marketing strategy is to increase the sales and profits of any organization or company.

Marketing strategy is developed by considering the following factors:

Environment analysis and marketing research:

The observation of external factors that promote success or failure of a company is a most important marketing strategy. The external factors include economy, competition, atmosphere, transport system and solicitation of data to resolve special marketing issue.

Market selection:

For better sales of a product, market selection is significant. The amount of sales of a product depends on the location of the market, whether the market is situated in urban or rural areas; whether the market place is easily accessible for people.

Consumer analysis:

The consumer characteristics such as taste, choice and preference affect the product marketing. The consumer characteristic varies from man to man and location to location. So inspection of consumer characteristics, needs and purchase processes is also important.

Product planning (including foods, services, and ideas):

Product planning includes the development of existing product by changing of the composition, packaging system, product positions, brands and deletion of the old products.

Distribution planning:

The delivery system of the product to various markets, shopping malls and restaurants is also considered for marketing strategy. The distance from the production place to whole or retail seller, transportation system, physical distribution, allocation of goods, wholesaling detailing, inventory management and channel relations are reasonable factors for distribution planning.

Price planning:

Price of a product should be kept in tolerable range for all classes of people so that they can easily pay for the product. If the price of the product becomes very high, the consumer will not buy the product.

Communication Planning:

The communication planning may include the advertising about the product through different mass media, such as the television, radio, newspaper. The more a company publishes, the more it sells. At the recent time, online advertising is another media of publicity. By advertising the companies or organizations gets the chance of focusing their product’s good quality and urging the customers to buy their products.

Brand name:

Brand name of a company has a large effect on the consumer to make them buy their product. A company should select a nice and attractive family brand for its better publicity.

If you want to really make your article “SELL” then you’ve got to craft the perfect RESOURCE BOX. This is the “author bio” that is below your article body and it’s also known as your “SIG” (short for SIGnature).

Here are the essential items that should be in your RESOURCE BOX:

Your Name: You’d be amazed at how many folks forget to include their name in the RESOURCE BOX. Your name and optional title should be the first thing in your resource box.

Your Elevator Pitch: This is 1 to 3 sentences that encapsulates the essence of what makes you and your offering unique. Also known as your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

Your Call To Action: You’ve got them warmed up and now it’s time to lead them to BUY from you or visit your website. This is where you “Ask For The Sale.” Best to only give (1) specific call to action.

Here are some optional items you could include in your RESOURCE BOX:

Your Ezine Subscription Address: While getting your interested visitor to surf your website is nice, capturing their email address can help you begin the confidence/trust process. If you’re going to do this strategy, include a URL for your ezine subscription address and do not use an email address for the “join” address.

Your Contact Information: Such as your business phone number or how to reach you for interviews or your press/media kit. Keep in mind that article marketing is a timeless strategy and you may not have an easy ability to retract what you put in your article once it hits major distribution.

A Free Report: This could also be part of your call to action or your free bonus report that further enhances your credibility as the expert on the topic of your article.

Your email autoresponder: I’m not a big fan of this strategy due to the fact that spammers will text-extract your autoresponder address and add it to their spam list. Perhaps this strategy was best for the 1990’s and has now run its course.

An anchor URL that is related to one keyword or keyword phrase that you want to build SEO strength for. Example: if I wanted to build search engine relevance/strength for the term “Article Writing,” I’d link up that term in my resource box to my website. This is an intermediate to advanced level strategy and should not be abused by over-doing it. Keep it simple.

What NOT to include in your RESOURCE BOX:

A listing of every website you own. There is no faster way to dilute your credibility than by posting a half dozen irrelevant URLs that have nothing to do with each other. Best to only post ONE URL that is related to the topic of your article.

A listing of every accomplishment you’ve achieved to date. No one cares. Keep your resource box brief and to the point. Yes, your resource box should be benefit oriented so that the reader finds value in reading it rather than your ego being justified.

Advertisements or pitches for products that are not relevant to the topic of your article.

Keep the size of your resource box so that it’s no larger than 15% of your total article size. Too often I see resource boxes that are 50% of the size of the total article and this is abusive.

Your Perfect Resource Box Conclusion:

The BODY of your article is where you “GIVE” and the RESOURCE BOX is where you get to “TAKE” for your article gift of information. The resource box is the “currency of payment” you receive for giving away your article. Be sure to include your name, website address, your unique selling proposition as briefly as possible and a simple call to action.

Over the years, the corporate ambience has cultured a potent need for research and development. While research is just as important an area in other fields such as finance, sales, or human resources, the scope of research in the dimension of marketing and sales management has only amplified with time. Corporations at the very top are investing millions of dollars in marketing research that includes both qualitative and quantitative research. Regarding the latter type, marketing innovations depend a great deal on the findings of quantitative research.

Statistics and Marketing

The statistical inferences delivered from the carriage of these researches are vital factors in determining the direction of an organization’s marketing flow. Be that product development, market development, promotional campaign plans, or knowing the customer standpoint, statistics run the state of affairs in contemporary marketing. The field of statistics contains a whole area of study relevant to marketing. Sophistication of these statistical methods goes a long way in enlightening the marketer about multiple aspects of marketing that aid him in the decision making process. Different methods help in different ways.

MDPREF

For example, there is a statistical analysis termed as multidimensional preference analysis (MDPREF) that employs the use of columns and rows for consumers and products respectively. With the help of this data analysis, the marketer can determine consumer preference patterns for different products. Essentials of the target market come out in the open along with the areas of potential market growth. Also various ideas can be deciphered through these patterns about product innovations.

Standing Out

Then there is multidimensional scaling (MDS), which throws light on the comparative analysis of the product and its competitors. Consumer standpoints generated from this analysis pave a path of illustration regarding the similarities and differences between different products. This, in turn, helps the marketer in descrying the product’s competitors and hence empowers him to develop the marketing base in productive accordance. In other words, the incorporation of insight produced from this method enables the marketer to develop the unique selling proposition of the product, thus making it score an edge over its counterparts.

Conjoint Analysis

Furthermore, another statistical strategy is conjoint analysis, the application of which evaluates consumer preference. Each product has a number of attributes. By employing conjoint analysis, the marketer succeeds in uncovering those combinations of attribute levels that have a high level of consumer preference. Consumers are given choices of different sets of attributes out of which they have to choose the one that will motivate them to a purchase. This is indeed valuable insight that facilitates the process of feature development, a prime context of marketing.

A Complimentary Hand

The aforementioned methods of statistics are just marginal accounts of the otherwise paramount contribution that statistical procedures are making to the field of marketing. Multiple innovations and advancements in marketing can be attributed to statistical findings, the utility of which has only diversified with the passage of time. Insight is key for business success and sustaining the freshness of that insight is exactly what statistics accomplishes. To cut a long story short, marketing owes a lot to statistics, given the consistency of value generation the latter continues to accomplish for the former.

Today all entrepreneurs or small business owners know and respect the importance of a business plan. But to most of them the benefit it has for their company after it has been used for an investment remains hidden. Therefore, it is important as it plays an important part in the growth and development of your business.

Business plans are documents that clearly describe the goals of the company along with all major and minor details regarding it. It is almost like a print of how you plan to build your company or organization. At the same time it plays the role of a medium to communicate through for investors and banks.

Not only does it guide your company towards its goals and accordingly the strategies are thought of, but even the management of your business relies on the business plan. Before you have written a plan you only have faint idea about what you plan to achieve and the milestones you wish to conquer. After the plan is written, the aims are clarified and you set up a plan of action. It describes everything about your organization.

Its position in the market and your products or services , a brief background story, your target customers, your budgets, your finances, strategies etc. it contains all details regarding the amount of money you need for starting up or carrying on. It is a financial tool.

The final, ready business plan can provide guidance to entrepreneurs for organizing and creating ideas to move forward. It would also contain details of where your company stands now, where it is going and where it plans to go. You can break down the goals into milestones to be achieved in a year.

If you haven’t upgraded your Company’s business plan, now is the time, a lot depends on it.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is one of the methods in website optimization which involves a set of activities which are implemented by the business houses to attract new visitors by driving traffic to the websites from other sources, other than search engines. The word of mouth in social media optimization is spread through social networking, blogging, video marketing and social bookmarking sites whereby the businesses can improve their online presence, reach to the targeted network and market their brands and products in the most effective ways.

With the evolvement and popularity of the social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter etc, SMO has been a blessing for the small business in the truest sense of term. Not only, SMO services lead to measureable outcome and the progress can be tracked and assessed, but also the cost of service associated with SMO services is very low in comparison to the traditional marketing methods. Hence, it has become much easier for the small scale online businesses to reach out to their potential client base easily and connect with them while spreading the brand awareness. Social media optimization also facilitates fine lines of communication and when implemented in the right way, SMO services can surely yield productive results.

SMO services include content submission (article submission and press release distribution), classified ad posting, video submissions, PPT submissions, social bookmarking, RSS feed submission blogging, forum posting, social network marketing etc. An online business wishing to promote its brands and services through social media platforms seeks to refer to a professional SMO company. On the client’s behalf, the SMM Company formulates the righteous strategies and implements various methods and techniques to promote the brands in the social media arena.

A professional social media optimization company incorporates social bookmarking as an integral part of SMO campaign. By adding bookmark to the social bookmarking sites and optimizing the tags of the business page, the SMO executives seek to give comprehensive exposure to the client’s business page.

Blogging is another crucial aspect in SMO services. A professional SMO company emphasizes on maintaining and upgrading blogs with fresh and engaging content to drive visitors. Publishing regular updates in blogs are ways of informing the target audience about the latest news about the company. Blogs are also good podiums for accumulating where visitor’s feedback. The SMO executives hence try to make the blogs as engaging as possible. They upload images, videos and play with the words intelligently to make the blog interesting for the readers.

The SMO executives, on behalf of their clients, engage themselves in the ongoing discussions in the online forums. Participating in the discussion forums and posting the views on a relevant topic is one of the most effective options of interacting with a pool of target audience. The social media experts thus utilize the discussion forums with the aim to communicate with the targeted audience at an inter-personal level.

A small sized business can get the best out of the social media platform provided they utilize the right techniques. There should be winning strategy and planning that will give the businesses an upper hand in the competitive domain. SMO services do not mean blatant promotion in the social media platform, rather through cognitive approach, communication and collaboration a business can get the best outcome and generate good amount of web traffic for their website.

Businesses must ensure that only the latest technologies and software are deployed at the workplace, in order to provide quality solutions to their clients, and to be ahead of the competition. With the ever-changing technological trends in the industry, businesses find it cumbersome to adopt these technologies. Instead they can hand the entire function over to a sound IT consulting services company – who in turn will tap into their global pool of highly skilled IT professionals, who have the advantage of working in various IT environments, and have extensive experience across sectors. By providing assistance to business, IT consulting services providers free up existing resources; ensure IT transitions are smooth and problem-free; optimise key business processes; identify areas that benefit with further cost saving; build competitive advantage through IT; reduce IT complexities; provide IT strategy consultancy services, IT project management services and provide specialised programme management solutions – all of which, help the organisation achieve significant business efficiencies and cost benefits.

Choosing to work with an IT firm definitely boosts a company’s overall efficiency, which in turn decreases costs. Firms tend to look for a flexible and bespoke solution to address the client’s IT needs, thereby delivering solutions that are in tandem with the client’s goals.

The advantages listed above necessitate hiring an IT company. But how will a business know that it needs IT consultancy services?

A business may function with its existing IT architecture without knowing the benefits of such services. In order to discern the need for IT consulting services, businesses must first understand the details of their services. According to Wikipedia, ‘IT consulting is a field that focuses on advising businesses on how best to use IT to meet their business objectives. In addition to providing advice, IT consultancies often estimate, manage, implement, deploy, and administer IT systems on businesses’ behalf, known as Outsourcing’. IT consulting services firms thereby help businesses strategise and evaluate their IT functions as a whole and take the necessary steps to implement and/or deploy and then administer effective and robust IT systems in place. Businesses can seek the services of an IT firm when:

IT investments regularly overshoot the set budget. Fast-paced technologies and trends warrant proper planning. When making strategic use of the allocated budget seems difficult, seeking the advice of IT consultancy services providers is imperative.

A business decides to relocate or reduce staff.

Projects regularly miss deadlines. Lack of specialists, complex projects and shoestring budgets lead to inefficient project management. A sound IT consulting services company designs bespoke, safe and cost-effective solutions, either full time or part time.

Challenges of globalization, technical and regulatory changes arise. Business and technology management when integrated help the business survive, and therefore IT strategy consultancy is important.

Programmes and projects eat into the budget. A business needs specialised programme management solutions to achieve significant cost savings. A robust IT services company provides either the co-sourcing or the outsourcing model to help businesses remain ahead of the competition, by providing tailored solutions.

There is a need to change networks or when the need to shift to a new IT architecture arises.

The company is in need of a robust disaster recovery plan.

There are no data storage systems in place.

Availing the services of the right IT consulting services company may be a challenge. A business must choose a provider before the problems stated above get worse – and must choose a provider who is able to set in place a sound IT system in place. Therefore, a business must choose a provider who provides flexible solutions. Businesses must also remember that though they think they are able to fix small issues, the reality is that these issues must be treated at the root, and they can be properly tackled only with strategic IT solutions – only provided by an effective IT consulting services company.